Re: One from last Summer

Nice! Was this shot outdoors? The lens reversal seemed to worked nicely here. My only comment was that the noise reduction using Topaz Denoise software was a bit over. You can actually take out much of the noise without sacrificing the details by tweaking the "Reduce Blur" and the "Recover Detail" sliders.

Re: One from last Summer

Originally Posted by jiro

Nice! Was this shot outdoors? The lens reversal seemed to worked nicely here. My only comment was that the noise reduction using Topaz Denoise software was a bit over. You can actually take out much of the noise without sacrificing the details by tweaking the "Reduce Blur" and the "Recover Detail" sliders.

Hi Jiro and thanks for your comment, yes it was outdoors on a very warm summers day, I have progressed with the topaz a bit now and it was a friend who actually denoised this one.

Re: One from last Summer

it's a shame the tail wasn't in focus as well

I am amazed that you got what you did in focus. The DoF is wafer thin when you reverse the lens like that. I have tried this with my old Zuiko 50mm f/1.8. The image is very well done and I would love to know what distance you were from the fly and what aperture you set the lens to. You have inspired me to have another go at this.

Re: One from last Summer

Originally Posted by Wirefox

I am amazed that you got what you did in focus. The DoF is wafer thin when you reverse the lens like that. I have tried this with my old Zuiko 50mm f/1.8. The image is very well done and I would love to know what distance you were from the fly and what aperture you set the lens to. You have inspired me to have another go at this.

Hi Wirefox.

Blazing sunshine, F22, Iso640, shutter 250th and about 8'' from the target; if you watch hovers they pause prior to going into a plant, they regularly pause in the same bit of air space too this helps in predicting roughly where they will go so you can prepare.

Hope that helps, below is another same style; again slightly ott on topaz, but it made me a happy chap.

Re: One from last Summer

If you haven't identified that hoverfly yet, Andy, it is a male Episyrphus balteatus.

They also sometimes occur in a dark form (luckily this specimen was sitting still for a few seconds.

These are possibly one of the more reliable in flight hoverfly subjects because they do tend to hover in one spot; but actually getting a good flying shot is never easy. I like to use a Sigma 180 macro lens for insects but it is a bit slow on auto focusing; so I mostly use manual focus. But in flight subjects move faster than I can manually focus.

Unless you can manage a perfect angle (at 90 degrees and parallel with the longest area, body or wings) some part of an insect is usually slightly out of focus; but sometimes you can't worry too much about that. This is even more important with long bodied species like dragonflies. Usually if the head is sharp any other areas don't notice too much; although because I mostly photography insects in order to identify them I tend to just concentrate on the required identification areas.

I always like the way this species 'tuck up' their backlegs and let them stream back alongside their abdomen.

Re: One from last Summer

If you haven't identified that hoverfly yet, Andy, it is a male Episyrphus balteatus.

They also sometimes occur in a dark form (luckily this specimen was sitting still for a few seconds.

These are possibly one of the more reliable in flight hoverfly subjects because they do tend to hover in one spot; but actually getting a good flying shot is never easy. I like to use a Sigma 180 macro lens for insects but it is a bit slow on auto focusing; so I mostly use manual focus. But in flight subjects move faster than I can manually focus.

Unless you can manage a perfect angle (at 90 degrees and parallel with the longest area, body or wings) some part of an insect is usually slightly out of focus; but sometimes you can't worry too much about that. This is even more important with long bodied species like dragonflies. Usually if the head is sharp any other areas don't notice too much; although because I mostly photography insects in order to identify them I tend to just concentrate on the required identification areas.

I always like the way this species 'tuck up' their backlegs and let them stream back alongside their abdomen.

Thanks, no I didn't know the name so that is very interesting; what a great shot that is too.

Re: One from last Summer

The catnip crop was very thin in this part of the state last year, so we had many hoverflys in our little patch. I shot over 150 photos of them with my 55-200 and managed to get 1 (one!) actually sitting still. (I still haven't identified it.)